Lighting and the year 2012... Huh?!

[Aeger]

I noticed midnight didn't feel like light midnight, i.e. I could still see as everything if it were daytime.

 

Then I switched the year of my mission from 2012 to 2011... and it finally looked like night time. Able to repro.

 

Quite weird tbh.

 

First two pics are with the year set to 2012, last one is 2011.

[some1]

That's because the game takes moon phases into account, so it makes the nights brighter when the moon is full. By changing the year you got a different moon phase, you can achieve the same effect by changing the date by a week or two.

 

Anyway, the moonlight effect is very basic, it makes everything brighter, including cockpit and ground, even under full overcast.

[Aeger]

Thanks for the reply some1.

 

Strange, given that I have full cloud cover (density set to 10).

 

I guess clouds don't obscure moonlight, unless the brightness/color calibration for my monitor is off...

Edited February 7, 2017 by Aeger

[some1]

As I said, moonlight is a very basic effect. It's made using ambient lighting (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shading#Ambient_lighting) so it brightens all objects equally, regardless of their position. It wouldn't be hard to make it dependent on the overcast, but I guess no one bothered.